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November 15, 2012

Yesterday I wrote about the Jays recent trade and warned fans not to have high expectations, based on the results of some other blockbuster deals or big signings. I outlined several examples over the past 10 or so years where teams added major parts in the offseason and didn't get the results they expected.

That's all well and good, but just because some big trades don't pan out, doesn't mean that they all won't. So today, I'm going to look at the specific players involved in this trade, and analyze how much of an impact they can be expected to provide.

The players the Blue Jays received were Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, Mark Buerhle, John Buck and Emilio Bonifacio.

Yesterday I wrote about the Jays recent trade and warned fans not to have high expectations, based on the results of some other blockbuster deals or big signings. I outlined several examples over the past 10 or so years where teams added major parts in the offseason and didn't get the results they expected.

That's all well and good, but just because some big trades don't pan out, doesn't mean that they all won't. So today, I'm going to look at the specific players involved in this trade, and analyze how much of an impact they can be expected to provide.

The players the Blue Jays received were Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, Mark Buerhle, John Buck and Emilio Bonifacio.

November 14, 2012

I just wrote a post on my Baseball in Alberta blog about what impact the Blue Jays trade could have locally. As a Red Sox fan, I realize that it impacts our team as well, so I am reposting here, with a few edits.

Our division rival, the Toronto Blue Jays pulled off a blockbuster deal and have added 4 all-star players to their roster. Money aside (Rogers still has a few excess billions), the only cost was a controversial shortstop (whom will be replaced by one of the premier shortstops in the league), an under-performing pitcher and some prospects. And although some of these prospects might pan out in future years, it’s not as though any of them were the kind of prospects that your average baseball fan was following in the minors – a la Bryce Harper or Jesus Montero. In fact it wasn’t even the top organizational prospects – but their consensus #2, 5 and 8 guys.

Should we concede the division right away? Do we have no hope of competing against the re-tooled Blue Jays next season? Not so fast.....

This trade will make Toronto a better team for the immediate future. It may even help their chances of making the playoffs, but we're jumping to conclusions if we assume any more than that. Remember how we felt when we added A-Gon and Carl Crawford to our already potent lineup? It was a foregone conclusion that we would win the division, most of the chatter around the baseball message boards was if we would break the 100 win barrier or not.

Anyhow, there are two ways we can look at this: Look at individual player's impacts, or look at what history tells us about the fate of teams that made huge acquisitions, bolstering their rosters in hope of attaining that elusive championship. Today I'm going to start by looking at history for some parallels. In my next post, I'll analyze this specific trade more closely.

The Toronto Blue Jays pulled off a blockbuster deal and have added 4 all-star players to their roster. Money aside (Rogers still has a few
excess billions), the only cost was a controversial shortstop (whom will
be replaced by one of the premier shortstops in the league), an under-performing pitcher and some prospects. And although some of these prospects might
pan out in future years, it’s not as though any of them were the kind of
prospects that your average baseball fan was following in the minors – a la
Bryce Harper or Jesus Montero. In fact it wasn’t even the top organizational
prospects – but their consensus #2, 5 and 8 guys.

What does any of this have to do with Baseball in Alberta?
Well, if these moves help the Blue Jays win the World Series, the impact
will be felt at the local level. There will be a resurgence in fan
interest, like there was in the early 90s, and it will cascade all the way down
to cities building more youth baseball diamonds, more revenue for independent
teams, more players wanting to play, attracting more qualified coaches north of
the border and so on. So, yes, this trade could have a major impact on the
baseball landscape in Alberta, from Little League to the WMBL to
semi-professional franchises to potentially attracting minor league teams back
to our province.

November 06, 2012

As you'll recall, I made my picks right after the season finished. There were some easy choices, but I made a few controversial choices. I ignored Jim Johnson's 51 saves, and selected Fernando Rodney for top reliever. I picked Justin Verlander and his 17 wins for top pitcher while shunning 20 game winners David Price and Jered Weaver. More egregiously, I ignored Miguel Cabrera's triple crown and selected Mike Trout as player of the year. I had some very good reasons for doing so as outlined in my posts, but I expected to be in the minority. Well, I am very pleasantly surprised to see the rest of my BBA brethren (and sistren!), selected the same award winners that I did. Below are the AL and NL winners of the Alliance, with links to their site where you can see more details on the voting.